


One Man's Trash

by evlytheevilqueen



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Clint might not be the best gift-giver, M/M, it's heartfelt though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 10:10:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7357030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evlytheevilqueen/pseuds/evlytheevilqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson prided himself on not being snobby when it came to gifts. He'd not only accepted but even worn some truly ugly Christmas sweaters courtesy of his seemingly colorblind great-aunt Margret. Every embarrassing gift family members and Nick Fury – who might as well be counted as such at this point – had come up with, Phil had accepted without complaint and interpreted as the token of affection it was. Even if some of them were only a test to see how much he could be needled before he snapped.</p><p>He had to admit that the... things on his desk were pushing even his limits, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Man's Trash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kinthinia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinthinia/gifts).



> This story was inspired by a conversation with Kinthinia that ended with us realizing that Clint is basically Wall-E and Phil Eve, so obviously Clint would totally give Phil a trash statue. So we both wrote something with that premise and this is my contribution.
> 
> @Kinthinia: Take notes, this is what I actually meant with the cute fluffy premise thing, you angst monster :P

Phil Coulson prided himself on not being snobby when it came to gifts. He'd not only accepted but even worn some truly ugly Christmas sweaters courtesy of his seemingly colorblind great-aunt Margret. Every embarrassing gift family members and Nick Fury – who might as well be counted as such at this point – had come up with, Phil had accepted without complaint and interpreted as the token of affection it was. Even if some of them were only a test to see how much he could be needled before he snapped.

He had to admit that the... things on his desk were pushing even his limits, though. Why would anyone think he'd be happy about a rusted old soda can, some broken metal splinters and a half-broken, offendingly ugly porcelain figurine of a shepherd girl that maybe had a third of a face left. It wasn't offending enough to have malicious intent behind it – though who knew, the figurine looked like a horror movie prop with its one wide blue eye and the bright red half of a broad smile. Could be cursed for all Phil knew.

Although actually, for all intents and purposes, it mostly looked like someone had emptied out an old locker and dumped their trash on his desk. If it weren't for the careful arrangement, that's what Phil would have gone with. But every single item was painstakingly placed and he couldn't bring himself to just sweep it all in his trashcan. It might not look like much but it clearly meant something to someone and they wanted him to have it for whatever reason.

Hoping that reason wasn't trolling him, Phil carefully banished the items to the back of his drawer and promptly forgot all about the mystery trash hidden there as he turned to the never-depleting mountain of paperwork in his in-box.

***

Clint had been acting weird for the past couple of weeks. Phil couldn't pinpoint when it had actually started, or what had caused his off behavior. But one day he'd just shown up in Phil's office looking disappointed, and he'd been distant ever since. Phil didn't like it one bit, but he didn't know how to rectify the situation when he didn't even know what offense he had accidentally committed.

He had tried asking Natasha. If the eye roll she had given him was anything to go on she didn't know either.

And that was the truly weird part. Clint might refuse to talk about his weird hangups with anyone else. But he never kept secrets from Natasha. Natasha knew everything there was to know about Clint Barton, or so Phil had always thought. Not that he'd ever been jealous of her confidant status. Not at all.

Natasha didn't know about this, though. And it was definitely something to do with Phil. Clint was behaving perfectly normal with everyone else. It was eating Phil alive that he didn't have the faintest clue how he'd messed up the friendship he valued most in his life. Especially after all the hard work he had put into averting just that. He'd done his best not to let the fact that he was hopelessly in love with Clint show or get in the way of the comfortable ease between them. Or so he'd thought until now.

Now that that ease was gone, anyway, he might as well get it over with and confess to everything. Burn the last of the bridges, so to say. 

He decided to fight his maudlin thoughts with his comfort tea blend, hidden at the back of his drawer because he didn't indulge in it often. His hand touched a sharp edge and just as he pulled out the creepy figurine from hell, the door to his office opened.

“You kept it.” Clint sounded as bewildered as Phil felt. Phil was still staring at the broken porcelain in his hand when it finally clicked. He frowned at Clint. 

“So you were the one who left a bunch of random trash on my desk?”

Clint crossed his arms over his chest defensively and Phil wanted to take it back immediately at the vulnerable look on his face. Why did he have to say that? Hadn't he already assumed it was more than a pile of garbage? Wasn't that the only reason he still had it in the first place?

“I'm sorry, I...” He shrugged, holding up the figurine when words failed him. “I just don't know what...”

Clint started to look a little less like he was going to bolt from the room and never talk to Phil again. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“You didn't know what to do with it?”

Phil nodded, putting his free hand back in the drawer and coming up with the metal splinters and the rusted tin can. He made a helpless gesture at the little heap. Clint eyed it critically for a moment, brow furrowed.

“I guess it does look pretty random if you don't know...” He looked away, hand going to the back of his neck. Phil was amazed to see red creeping up the skin there. When Clint finally looked back up with a sheepish smile on his face, the blush was dusting his cheeks as well. Phil had to use all the self-control he had to keep his voice even.

“If I don't know what?”

“They're kinda... okay, so it looks like a bunch of crap, but...” Clint took a deep breath. “They kinda have a history, okay? It's... they're important. To me, at least.”

Phil looked down at the pile on his desk, then back up at a blushing, sheepish Clint Barton that was actually lost for words and his heart warmed.

“If they're so important, why give them to me?”

“Oh for God's sake, Phil!” Clint rolled his eyes so hard Phil worried they'd roll straight out of his head for a moment. “Why do you think? You're the most important person to me. I thought they belonged with you more than in my bleak SHIELD bunk.” He shrugged like he hadn't just turned Phil's entire world upside down. Like Phil Coulson being the most important person to Clint Barton was just a universally known life fact.

“You- I'm the most important person in your life?”

Clint stared at him as if he'd asked if water was wet. There was a very loud 'duh' implied in that look.

“Please tell me that's your very lame idea of a joke.” When Phil only shrugged at him, Clint started to look genuinely angry. “Of course you are! How can you not know that? Everyone knows. Laurel in R&D knows. Minh in the med bay keeps poking fun at me for it. Hell, Jude the lunch guy knows! Fury keeps giving me the side-eye. I could not be more blatantly obvious if I tried!”

Phil had to swallow hard. He had a feeling where this was going, had been ever since Clint came through the door and saw the figurine, really. He'd just convinced himself for too long that this could never happen, would never be something he could have outside of dreams. He needed to hear it out loud, needed proof before he could accept it.

“Obvious about what?”

Clint made a frustrated noise at the back of his throat that Phil had never heard before, not even on the most fucked-up of missions. He gestured at the tokens on Phil's desk, apparently too angry to form words.

Phil gave him a look and desperately tried to keep his Agent Coulson face on, even if it was probably cracking right down the middle, plain for Clint to see.

“It would probably help if I knew what they are.”

Clint shook his head at him but still came closer and dropped down heavily in the chair across from Phil.

“This,” he pointed at the tin can, “is the first canned drink Barney and I ever had. We swiped it from a bunch of skateboarders at the park when they weren't looking. They caught us, of course, and beat the living hell out of us, but what else was new. Definitely worth it, though. It was still cold and all we had was tepid tap water, and in the middle of a heat wave.” The smile on Clint's face was wistful in a way that made Phil's heart clench. No one should have to count getting beat up for something cold to drink a fond memory.

After another moment of loaded silence, Clint shrugged off the nostalgia.

“It was pretty much the last thing we did together before our parents died. Things... changed after that,” he said nonchalantly. Phil didn't know what to say to that and he couldn't think of anything before Clint continued.

“This,” he pointed at the infernal doll remains, “is from the one home we thought we might get to stay in for a while there. Got a little banged up over the years, but still. Don't know what we did wrong, or maybe they just weren't looking to adopt, just to foster for a while. Anyway, nicest folks we had. Little older, Lucinda collected these things. Swiped this one after they told us we couldn't stay.”

Phil's heart clenched some more when he realized that so far all of Clint's most cherished memorabilia he'd had to steal. 

“And the splinters...” Clint grinned at him, the first real one since he entered the room. “Thought you might have guessed those by now.” He raised a challenging eyebrow at Phil.

It took a while, but it finally hit him as he ran his fingers over the rough surface. “Arrowhead splinters?”

Clint nodded, grin even broader. “From the first arrow I hit bullseye with. Wanted to keep the whole thing but had to use it when I first went merc after Carson's. Couldn't afford more arrows. But I did save some splinters when I 'sharpened' it.” He even did the finger quotes and Phil fell just that little bit more in love with the dork in front of him. It hurt a little to look at Clint just then, so Phil looked down at the invaluable memories he'd been handed for safekeeping instead. Clint had handed over pieces of his past, fully anticipating that he'd have to explain them one day. Clint never gave up any information about his past if he could help it.

He was right, there was nothing left to question here.

Phil finally looked up, and the smile on his face _felt_ sappy. “I love you, too.”

Phil barely had time to gloat internally at the awe on Clint's face before he'd jumped over the desk and a soft pair of lips was pressed against his. As he sank into the single best first kiss of his life, Phil's last coherent thought was that he'd love to give Clint something for his collection one day. Something he wouldn't have to swipe or give up.

Years later, when he slipped the ring on Clint's finger from his position on the floor and Clint's eyes shone with tears and happiness and love, Phil knew he'd managed. He might even have given him the best one of them all – to date. It was definitely worth kneeling on a freshly healed leg for.


End file.
